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Turkey's European Union (EU) candidacy process, unlike other candidate countries, is a unique case in terms of the length of the process and the tensions experienced in the process. With the start of membership negotiations in 2005 and the increase in Turkey's obligations in the process, disruptions began to emerge and the anticipated progress could not be achieved. In this period, the EU's view of Turkey began to transform. It emerged as a reflection of this view with the privileged partnership proposals put forward in the mid-2000s. This study discusses how Turkey–EU relations have been shaped since 2005 when Turkey started membership negotiations and how the EU positions Turkey in light of current developments. In this context, the Strategic Compass document, which is aimed to shape the next 10 years of the EU, has been examined and focused on how Turkey is handled in the document. In the study, it has been revealed that the EU does not consider Turkey as a candidate country, but with a functionalist approach, depending on certain preconditions, as a partner with which it can make progress in areas of common interest.

Since the beginning of the twentieth century, modernization has been a defining concept for the politics of Turkey and is associated with the Western world. In this respect, EU membership has been a driving force for Turkey to reach its goal. As a candidate country in Customs Union with the EU, Turkey has to harmonize its legislation, judicial and administrative practices with the EU acquis. It brings fundamental changes and affects all layers of society, including public and private institutions, not only politically but also economically and socially. Accepting the EU acquis also requires human resources with sufficient experience and knowledge in the EU. However, teaching the EU is a complete challenge with its unique institutional structure, complexity of its policy areas, fast-changing legislation and case law. This chapter considers to what extent EU–Turkey relations have affected teaching EU in Turkey and some of the approaches which might be applied to overcome the main obstacles.

In our global world, international cooperation has vital importance when addressing humanitarian disasters. Today, as the majority of refugees live in the Southern countries proximate to their homelands, neighboring countries are predominantly the ones that carry the bulk of the refugee burden. Under certain circumstances, states engage in international cooperation in managing refugee crises; to this end, this study analyzes the motivations behind the signing of the 2016 European Union (EU)–Turkey refugee deal and its outcomes for both parties. Past research has shown that the 2015 refugee crisis in Europe demonstrated that the initiatives that the EU countries embarked upon to pursue a monolithic policy against this mass flow fell short and, therefore, enhanced Turkey's leverage with Europe, which provided Turkey with the ability to gain concessions in bilateral talks. However, this study claims that the EU member countries were in a more advantageous position compared to Turkey as a consequence of signing the refugee deal, and it is better to characterize the deal between the parties as burden-shifting rather than burden-sharing. In addition, although the inflow of approximately one million refugees to European shores panicked the European states and coerced most of them to return to their own national migration policies, this study shows that no concrete concessions were provided to Turkey to manage this massive flow. The provisions of the Deal were not the extraordinary payoffs that EU member countries offered Turkey to fight against the irregular migration, but the extension of EU's traditional migration policy.